Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-04-14
BILL NYEs RAILWAY PASS.
Lines on Returning the blasted Document
to the Genial Giver.

over your justly celebrated road during
the year 1887. | also return your pho
tograph and the letters you have writ
ten me during the past five years. viii
you kindly return mine? And so this
brief and beautiful experience is TO end
and each of us must go his own way
hereafter.
Alas
To you this may be easy, but ii
brings pang to my heart which your
gentle letter of the LIST inst cannot
wholly alleviate.
Whenever hereafter you look upon
this transported pass will you not
think of me? Remember that you
have cast me from you and that / am
wandering across the bleak and wind
swept plains sadly enumerating the ties
on my way to eternity.
do not say this to reproach you, for
| fear that you care for another, and so
we could not be happy again together.
But, oh! do you pause to fully compre-
bend the pang it cost me to return this
/ pleasant-faced little pass with its condi-
tions on the back? Could you see me
even now, as | write these lines, turn
ing away ever and anon, laying aside
my trembling pen to go and sit by the
CRATE and shudder and weep and put
out the fire with my bitter tears, your
heart would soften and you would say:
Return, o wanderer, returnr'
You do not say in your letter that |
have been false to you or that | have
ever grown cold. You do not charge
me with infdehty or failure to pro-
I vide. You simply say chat it would
be better for each to go his seve-
raj ways, forgetting that my several
ways are passing away, passing away.
1t is all well enough for you to talk
about going your several ways. You
have every facility for doing so, but
with me it is different. Several years
ago large Northwestern cyclone and
myself tried to pass each other on the
same track. When the wrecking crew
found me | was in the crotch of but
ternut tree, with q broken leg. Since
that time | have walked with great
difficulty, and to 90 my several ways
has been II very serious matter with
me.
i But do not want you to think that
am murmuring. | accept my doom
calmly, vet with slight tinge Of I'M
ayiling regret.
4 Some time, perhaps, in the middle of
the dark and angry night, when the
cold blasts wall through the telegraph
wires and the crashing sleet rushes with
wild and impctuous fury against the
windows of Your special ear, as you lie
warmly enSconced in your voluptuous
berth and hear the pitiless winds with
hoarse and croupy means chase each
other around the Kansas haystacks or
shrek wildly away rs they light out
for their cherries homes in the Bad
Lands, will YOU not think of me us |
grope on blindly through the keen and
pitiless blasts, stumbling over cattle
guards, falling into culverts and beat
ing out my rare young brains against
your rough right of way, will you not
think of me? | do not ask much of
you, but l do ask this as we separate
forever.
As you whiz by me do not treat me
with contumely, or throw crackers at
me when l have meekly turned out to
let your naughty old train go by. /
have always spoken of you in the
highest terms, and hope you will do
the same by me.
Life is short ut the best, and it is es-
pecially so for those who have to walk.
Walking has already shortened my life
q great deal, and | wouldn't be sur
prised if the exposure and bunions of
the year 1887 carried me off, leaving a
gap in American literature that will
look like new cellar.
Should any of your engineers or
trackmen find me frozen in cut next
winter, when the grass gets short and
the nights get long, will you kindly ask
them to report the brand to your
auditor and instruct him to allow my
family what he thinks would be right?
l hate to write to You in this detected
manner, but you cannot understand
how heavy my heart is to-day as | pen
these lines.
l wish you and your beautiful road
unmitigated success 1t is good road,
for l have passed over it and enjoyed it.
How different the country will look to
me as 90 bounding from tie to tie,
slowly repeating to myself the trite re-
mark once made by the Governor OF
North Carolina to the Executive Of
South Carolina!
| hope you may never know what it
is to pull into the quaint little city OF
La Junta with the dust of many mile
upon you and the thirst of long, un-
eventful journey in your throat. |
hope that Congress will not pass law
next year which will make it a felony
for railroad man to say ''gosh' with
out permit. hope that your life will
be chuck full of hurrah and hallelujah,
+ even if mine should be always bleak
and joyless.
i Can / do your road any good, either
/ at home or abroad? Can | be of SER
! vice to you over your right of way, by
! collecting nuts, bolts, old iron or other
! bric-a-brac? l would be glad to influ.
ence immigration or pull weeds be-
tween the tracks if you would be will
ing to regard me as an employee.
Il Will HOW tttht ~ lstSG iOOh du iilC Atsil
young features of your pass before
finally sealing this letter. How sad to
see an annual pass cut down in life's
young morning, ere one-fourth of its
race has been run! How touchful to
part from it forever!
/ What sad year this has been SO far!
Earthquakes, fires, storms, railway dis
asters and death in every form have
visited our country, and now, like the
biting blasts from Siberia, or the nip
ping frosts from Manitoba, comes the
< Congressional cut-worm, cutting of
the early crop of towering ANIMALS
Just as they had budded to bloom into
beauty and usefulness!
l will now close this sad letter to go
over into the vacant lot, behind the
L 4 Il. -,